I wouldn't be sitting here enjoying the forum if the job situation in my area was up to par. I live in Western Penna and it's real bad here. I used to be an independent delivery contractor for Wallie World and to make a long story short, when diesel fuel started going up over $3 a gallon I asked my boss for some more money to cover the cost of fuel. His answer was 'this just isn't working out' This after two years of service, countless times of working on my day off, shortening my honeymoon so he could spend his anniversary with his wife, killing two delivery trucks all the dedication I gave his company, I never called off I worked sick, I sent my kid to the babysitters when he was sick, I was the model employee except that I have a big bushy beard and I listen to the Grateful Dead. He never had one complaint about me or about my work ethic, until I asked him for some more money to cover fuel, then as Dylan would say 'one day the axe just fell' he didn't even have the sack to say something to me in person he fired me over the phone. The worst part was I had just spent $8,000 on a new delivery truck so his business could expand a month before he canned me, so not only was I stuck without a job right before Christmas I was stuck with a truck payment that I had no use for anymore. This happened a little over a year ago, and I have been struggling ever since. I had a job from March to October working for an ambulance company driving their transportation vans for the handicapped and the elderly, but I got into an argument with an administrator of a nursing home and he called the company and threatened to pull their contract if they didn't fire me, so I got the axe again. Turns out they pulled the contract anyway about a week after I got canned
I didn't have three months of savings or anything when I lost my good job. I still have the box truck and I have two contracts now but they are small time. I am only bringing in $30-60 a week at the moment. Thank god my wife has a decent job she is a RN, but the hospital is laying nurses off now, so we just might be screwed. I got my CDL permit back in oct, my dad is a truck driver and he has the ways and means to train me how to drive a big truck, but his job is seasonal, so I can't get behind the wheel of his truck till the snow melts again for the spring. That is what I am banking on now, but it sucks we have been married for a year and a half, our son is 10 and we want to have another, but it is looking like that isn't a possibility as I don't want to knock the old lady up and be on the road that's not fair to her. We don't want to relocate we live in a multi generation family homestead and our families and all our friends are here. School isn't an option for me cause I can't take myself out of the workforce to go to school full time, and part time school for me is just a waste of money. With Christmas coming up and losing another job over the course of a year things are looking pretty bleak right now. I realize that the whole country is struggling right now and I do count my blessings and I thank the Big Man upstairs for our health and safety, I just don't know what tomorrow will bring...
So on the bright side, I started building guitars in 1993 when I was in high school and have built two for myself and have hot rodded countless insturments and repaired more than I can remember. They say everyone has a talent, I wish I could play like I can build them. It is my art. I get nothing but compliments on my work and it all comes completely natural to me. I come up with ideas in my head for guitars and they always turn out pretty good. I wish there was a way I could build them full time and really invest some energy into my passion and my true talent. I am a delivery driver by trade, I am good at that, but it isn't a talent, it is a practiced skill. So I recently borrowed $360 from my mom to buy a Lefty WGD from the big W as I have an opportunity to show off some of my work at a local gallery. I am going to make this WGD a showcase of what I can do. I doubt there will be any real interest in my work, this area will squash the creativity right out of you, but you never know. Hopefully I can get someone to want an instrument. The WGD will be mine. with some abalone purfling and some walnut inlay I think it will be a work of art that I can pay some homage to Jerry and Doug Irwin and maybe who knows it might catch someone's eye that will want one for themselves. I am not counting on ever building a guitar for anyone and making a profit, though in a perfect world that would be what I would be doing for a living.
To all you others out there in my work boots, good luck, keep looking thru the classifieds, and if you want a guitar I'd be happy to build one for you.....